AMU Library Ban: Indian Institutions working for gender empowerment

Years after women in our country earned their right to vote, study whatever they want, work in any field they wished to, marry whoever they choose; a reputed university in northern India, dragged us back to the 19^th century.

"If we allow girls into the library, there will be four times more boys," said Lt Gen Zameeruddin Shah, the Vice Chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University. Yes, one of the most reputed Universities in the country that has 35% female students has banned women from entering the University library. Lt. Shah’s justification for doing this was that there are 4000 female students in the university and allowing all of them would leave no space for anyone else.

According to a report by the University Grants Commission, most higher educational institutions in the country are indifferent to the rights and safety of women and sometimes even resort to moral policing.

Let’s have a look at the some  educational institutions for women in the country, that work for gender empowerment

Indian Express>

ANNA UNIVERSITY, Chennai

Anna University has a very active Centre for Empowerment of Women, which was established in 2002. The university has a majority of women teaching staff and many female scientists and technologists who encourage women from urban and rural areas to enter STEM fields.

JAWAHARLAL NEHRU UNIVERSITY, Delhi

JNU’s Gender Sensitization Committee Against Sexual Harassment (GS-CASH) is a highly active body that works towards the safety and empowerment of women. The university is extremely gender sensitive and even had a homosexual candidate standing up for elections last year.

MAHARANI’S SCIENCE COLLEGE FOR WOMEN, Bangaluru

Even though the college is not as popular as it used to be some decades ago, its sole vision has been to provide education to girls and empower them. After a surge of private colleges taking over, Maharani remains to be a popular academic institution for the underprivileged.

SHREEMATI NATHIBAI DAMODAR THACKERSAY WOMEN’S UNIVERSITY, Mumbai

The SNDT University is dedicated to the cause of Women’s empowerment and has collaborated with various state and central government programmes for research. These include, University Grants Commission, UNICEF, British Council, Association of Commonwealth Universities and Swedish International Development Agency.

SAVITRI BAI PHULE, PUNE UNIVERSITY, Pune

The Pune University is one of the very few universities in the country that are implementing the UGC report on women's safety. They have counseling centers in place at more than 300 affiliated colleges. They also train the teaching and non-teaching staff along with the students on gender sensitization issues.

DELHI UNIVERSITY

Delhi may be unsafe for women but the culture at Delhi University, highly promotes women’s causes. One of the main reasons being that maximum number of colleges in the university, are women’s colleges. The Delhi University Women’s Association or DUWA provides women various facilities and programmes to help them move forward.